Game Menu ver 1.61 Copyright: (C) 1997 Jim Pragit Software Programmed by Jim Pragit What is Game Menu? JP-Soft's Game Menu is one of the most advanced universal emulator front ends in existence today. It presents a simple and easy to use menu for game selection. Why use a front end? Because it's a lot easier! Game Menu completely eliminates the endless and error prone monotony of constantly typing lengthy DOS commands. Instead, it gives a menu showing all your games. To play a game, just click on it with your mouse and Game Menu takes care of the rest! Plus, it can even display actual game names instead of DOS filenames. In other words, instead of seeing a list full of cryptic filenames like SRAID32.BIN or S_SPIN.GG, you see real game descriptions like Star Raiders and Sonic Spinball. What are some of the Game Menu's features? - Compatible with all console, arcade and computer emulators! - Simple and easy to use Menu System - Mouse Support (a rarity among DOS front ends) - User Configurable Colors and Interface - Three Dimensional Text-Based Graphics - On-Line Help How do I install Game Menu? Copy GameMenu.exe and GameMenu.txt to the same directory as the emulator. Then, you need to create a GameMenu.ini file (if one hasn't already been provided). What is the GameMenu.ini file? The GameMenu.ini file is a simple text file that gives Game Menu information on how to run a particular emulator. Several example ini files have been included: - Stella.ini for Stella (Atari 2600 emulator) - ColEmDos.ini for ColEmDos (ColecoVision emulator) - DVE.ini for DVE (Vectrex emulator) - Massage.ini for Massage (Sega Master System emulator) - VGB.ini for Virtual GameBoy (Nintendo GameBoy emulator) - fMSX-DOS for fMSX (MSX emulator) If you use any of these emulators, simply rename the appropriate example file as GameMenu.ini. If you use any other emulators, use these files as examples and modify them accordingly. Further explanations can be found in these ini files themselves. Why use an initialization (ini) file? To make Game Menu a universal front end. This way, JP-Soft's Game Menu can be used with virtually all emulators available today by simply changing a few lines in the GameMenu.ini file. This makes Game Menu very flexible and saves you the trouble and confusion of using a different front end for each and every emulator you use. How do I modify GameMenu.ini? You can use any text editor you want, such as EDIT or Notepad. Personally, I prefer to use UltraEdit. UltraEdit is available for Window 3.1x and Windows 9x. You can download a shareware version from: http://www.idmcomp.com What needs to be in the GameMenu.ini? At the bare minimum, only one line is needed in the the following format: CMD emulator_filename This will tell Game Menu the command line used to run the emulator. Make sure you include the path to the emulator as well as any global parameters you want to add. What else should go in GameMenu.ini? In most circumstances, you should also include DIR and EXT lines using the following syntax: DIR directory_where_the_ROM_images_are EXT dos_filename_extension The DIR line gives the directory where the ROM images are. The EXT line gives the filename extension of these ROM images. For example: DIR C:\Stella\ROMs\ EXT BIN Note: If no DIR is given, Game Menu will default to checking the current directory for ROM images. If no EXT line is used, Game Menu will default to using a wildcard (*.*) to get this list of ROM images. What should I do to get an arcade emulator like M.A.M.E. to work with Game Menu? Follow this example: CMD \mame\mame EXT Simple enough? What are all the keywords that I can use in the GameMenu.ini file and what do they do? Keyword: CMD Purpose: Tells Game Menu the pathname of the emulator (any global parameters should go here too.) This line is required for Game Menu to run. Syntax: CMD Pathname_of_emulator [optional_global_parameters] Example: CMD C:\SMS-GG\MASSAGE Keyword: DIR Purpose: Tells Game Menu the directory where the ROM images are. This is also required. Syntax: DIR directory_where_the_ROM_images_are Example: DIR C:\SMS-GG\ROMS Keyword: EXT Purpose: Tells Game Menu the filename extension(s) of the ROM images. You can specify up to four, each on its own line. This keyword is optional but highly recommended. If the ROM image has no extension, just use the EXT keyword with nothing after it. Syntax: EXT ROM_image_filename_extension Example: EXT SMS EXT GG Keyword: PAF Purpose: Tells Game Menu extra command line parameters that must appear after the ROM image filename. This is optional and is not used much. Syntax: PAF global_parameters_after_ROM_image_filename Example: PAF -5 Keyword: ROM Purpose: Tells Game Menu additional command line parameters for a specific ROM image (optional, but is necessary for some emulators to run certain ROM images) Syntax: ROM ROM_image_filename parameter(s) Example: ROM ALTBEAST.SMS /li 1 Keyword: DSC Purpose: Tells Game Menu what description should appear in the main menu for that particular ROM image instead of the actual filename (optional, but very nice!) Syntax: DSC ROM_image_filename description Example: DSC SONIC.GG Sonic The Hedgehog The format of Game Menu's ini file looks familiar. Why is that? The format of Game Menu's ini file is based upon Andrew Bond's Console Menu program. This allows users of both Game Menu and Console Menu to switch between the two programs with little or no modification. What if I have more than one emulator? Copy GameMenu.exe and GameMenu.txt to each emulator's directory and create a GameMenu.ini file for each of these emulators. Make sure the appropriate ini file is in the correct directory. For more details on how to create an ini file, read the example ini files included with this distribution. I'm using Game Menu for more than one emulator. How can I get each copy of Game Menu to use the same settings and colors? Create a directory called JP-Soft on the root directory of your drive. What do I have to do to use Game Menu's support for Stella's VCS files? Nothing. This feature is automatic. How do I add descriptions for the ROM images? Simply select the game you want in the main menu, hit F6(or ALT,E,D) and then type in the description. Please note that each ROM image filename should have a unique description. What if I discover a bug? Send E-mail with a complete and accurate description of the problem to JPSoftCo@aol.com. Is Game Menu copyrighted and how much does it cost? Yes, Game Menu is copyrighted by the author, James Pragit. Although, it is copyrighted, no fee is charged for this program. You are free to distribute this program to anyone you want, just keep all the files together (including this one as it is the only file containing any documentation on Game Menu). Is there any disclaimer? Game Menu has been thoroughly tested and debugged on a variety of emulators, computers and users and found to be perfectly safe. However, it is impossible to anticipate every possible situation or contingency that may arise. Therefore, neither Jim Pragit nor Jim Pragit Software make any guarantees towards its safety and accepts no responsibility for any harm it might do, however unlikely. Why did I write Game Menu? Because, the other front end programs I've seen (and used) always seemed to lack certain features I wanted. For example, Game Menu is the only universal DOS front end I know of that lets you use a mouse. Also, Game Menu has a nice, three-dimensional look that other programs like this lack. Further, my program is the only one that I know of that has built-in support for Stella's VCS files. This is one of the advantages of being a programmer; if there isn't a program out there that does what you want it to, you can write your own. Who is Jim Pragit? I'm a senior at Northern Illinois University majoring in Computer Science. I've worked with computers on both the software side (as a programmer) and hardware side (as a PC technician). I've written many programs including the critically acclaimed Free Space DOS utility, chosen as America Online's DOS Forum's Top Pick in 1996. My languages of choice include C, Cobol, and Visual Basic. I graduate in December 1997. Does Jim Pragit Software have a web site? Yes. There, you can find the latest version of Game Menu as well as an updated and an expanded FAQ (HTML-ized to boot) and other free software. Also in the works is a Game Menu archive and a page dedicated to the Atari 7800 ProSystem. The URL is: http://members.aol.com/jpsoftco What if I have a suggestion or comment about Game Menu? Send E-mail to JPSoftCo@aol.com. Final Note: If you have a GameMenu.ini file for an emulator other than the examples included with this distribution, please e-mail it to JPSoftCo@aol.com so that it can be included with future editions of Game Menu. Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.